Business & Start Ups Blog

Google: Think Branding 2013

I attended to a great and inspirational conference by Google about the digital world and the creation, adaptation and maintenance of brands, which many of them have been killed by the online phenomenon, like Blockbuster, and others are in risk, like hotels. (Airbnb has filled more rooms than all Hilton in 2012).

For me there were two great speakers:

James Hilton (AKQA co-founder) who said that the future of health will tend to a merge between smartphones and applications with physical objects such as pressure gauges or sugar controls. A future dedicated more to prevention than cure.

And James recommended to ask yourself some questions when developing the strategy of your brand:

- What is the most important thing for you? What´s the one?
- What could your competitor do that it would make you disappear? - So, Do it. Disrupt plans, or be disrupted.

Other comments from James about key entrepreneurial success of a brand goes for turning something for the elite to something common for everybody.

He also added, "Help people to be better. Create the inevitable. Start with your vision, we can predict that things will be in the future for sure. So, be the one who create them"

After, Eric Whitacre(profile TED), spoke about the generation of ideas and their own experience about making music. He believes in the inspiration, but also believes in being prepared when inspiration appears "Im 8h per day in my office waiting for the inspiration to come, if it doesn´t, I´ll wait again tomorrow".

He recalled that a simple start may eventually develop the best of the compositions, as the four opening notes of the Bethoveen´ 5th symphony, which are repeated and combined to create the entire piece.

He also spoke of his experience in the creation of a groundbreaking global project, a virtual choir made up of thousands of people around the world through youtube, who said to have listened incredible stories about the union of the people through the network without geographical barriers.

The conference ended with a quite interesting comment. "Is the Internet a tool of God or Devil? I think they are still playing it".